


Pure

by technicallyGone



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: ? sort of, Character Study, Daniel did some fucked up things and thats not cool, Daniel goes into his life as a cultist, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Mentions of Death, Sort Of, Teacher David, but they still get a happy ending, dadvid, reformed daniel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 06:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12427341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technicallyGone/pseuds/technicallyGone
Summary: Daniel knew the only way to reach a peaceful ending was to be purified and ascend while you were in the perfect state of being, free from all the negativity cast down upon you.He also knew that David was not pure.He couldn't find it in himself to attempt to fix that.





	Pure

**Author's Note:**

> Request from Da-da-da-daddio! Hope it's what you were looking for. I might have gone a little overboard, but this was so fun to do!

Humans were naturally unclean. It might be a tough truth for most people to bare, but having had it pushed down his throat for the entirety of his life, Daniel took it as just another fact. While most kids were off at school or playing with their friends at recess, Daniel was homeschooled by the cult’s collective. Having an individual parent was a weird idea. The children were taken care of by the collective, so that they all might take credit for bringing new little healers into this world.

And that’s what Daniel saw himself as. A healer. There was only one way to get out all that negative energy, and when you did, it never lasted. Humans were meant to be imperfect. The only solution, really, was to help them ascend while they were in that state of perfection, before they could be tainted again.

That’s why it was the highest honor to be a healer. You were above the other humans. You were smart enough to realize the truth about the negative energy from the cosmos and you were capable enough to manage to keep yourself pure while you helped others reach a state of absolute perfection and sent them off to meet their glorious maker.

Still, no matter what way he spun it, attempting to murder a whole camp full of children can’t sound good. Even if you explain yourself, no one’s really willing to listen. Daniel knew that, knew the rules of society would deem this as, well, unredeemable. And they really, really weren’t wrong.

Daniel wasn’t going to play dumb. He knew that there was something so intrinsically horrible about hurting a child who looked up to you for support, who needed to have blind faith in the fact that you as an adult would want only what was best for them. And to Daniel, ascension really was best. 

Still, it wouldn’t pass as a great excuse for attempted murder. He’d be sentenced to life in prison, seemingly thrown away by society to never be dealt with. That was how most of the healers ended up, if they hadn’t died or killed themselves to ascend with a group they were particularly fond of. Daniel waited for his conviction to come, for him to be taken in as he laid in the hospital bed. 

That never happened. It was apparent that David hadn’t told the paramedics of what had really transpired. The shitty little backwater town with their obvious lack of proper medical equipment was also a pretty dead giveaway to the state of affairs. A big murder could be covered up in a place like this, where news didn’t spread quickly and no one in the national eye gave a fuck. 

It was with a jolt that Daniel realized he was going to get away with this. Already, it seemed like no one recognized him. He was just that counselor from camp. He didn’t know what kind of idiots these people were, but this was his chance. Not at a second go of the camp, that wouldn’t work again, but his journey didn’t end there. He could continue doing what he knew he had to for the sake of Zemoog. 

Even after getting out of the hospital, though, Daniel couldn’t clear his mind of Camp Camp. That was wrong, he was never stuck on a failed mission, and never this long. Surely there was a logical answer.

No, he didn’t need logic. These were lingering negative emotions, obviously. He just needed a quick cleanse and everything would be alright again! He just had to…

Nothing worked. Nothing! He had tried every trick in their very long and expansive book and he could say 100%, without a doubt Camp Camp was still on his mind. 

No, he couldn’t. He could say David was still on his mind.

What was wrong with that man? He’d let Daniel off free. He didn’t call the cops afterwards- Daniel was still staying in town, looking for a new destination before heading off and it’d been /months/ now. Even if someone did recognize him at this point, he’d made enough of a positive impact on the community that he’s fairly sure most people would stand up for his good character.

The answer was obvious. He had to find David and take care of him personally. If David ascended, than he could go back to his job in peace. He could maybe find peace, one day, but he was going to be impure as long as David was still around to think about.  
______________________________________________________

This was not how things were supposed to go. He needed to get close to David so he could purify him, send him on his way and let the man see the greatness that waited for all of those purified in the great beyond. 

David, however, was somewhat of a contradiction. At first, Daniel didn’t think a man like that could exist. He didn’t seem to have the negative emotions that everyone did. He was almost too bright to look at, to be around. Daniel briefly thought about how he’d make a great healer, but that idea was tossed aside. David cared too much.

It wasn’t negative, so it wasn’t technically a sin, but he didn’t have what it took to bring people to their final homes. He cared about each person individually with an endless amount of hope. 

One month in with interacting with David and Daniel hadn’t made any progress in either purifying or helping David ascend. That was fine. Daniel had been on longer missions than this, he knew the more he put in the more satisfying sending them off to the great beyond would be.

Three months and Daniel realizes that David’s nowhere near as pure as he pretends he is. He’s selfish. Horribly, horribly selfish because Daniel’s a threat to anyone David cares about, wouldn’t hesitate to send them off with David if he so requested, and he kissed him. Daniel was making David impure.

Six months, and it’s more than just Daniel making David impure. The man holds onto so many of those negative emotions! He bottles them, represses them and doesn’t deal with it. And it’s not the same as sending those feelings away to the cosmos where they came from. No, this is different, because David holds onto them, doesn’t want to forget. 

David had woken up in the middle of the night, screaming. He’d let Daniel stay over, their stay-at-home date had gone on for much longer than anticipated and David wouldn’t let Daniel head to the shabby little place he called a home at such a late hour. Daniel insisted on staying on the couch, not bothered David while he slept. He sprinted to the other’s room, though, and for the first time the thought of coming upon a scene of blood and gore made him nearly panic. 

There was no one there, no one stabbing or slicing and hurting David in any physical ways. What Daniel found was maybe more distressing, though- David hurting in ways Daniel couldn’t help. He crawled into the bed, didn’t protest as David latched onto him, breathing still uneven. 

“What happened?”

“Nightmare.”

“What was it about?”

“I killed someone.”

Daniel let out a breath. Of course David would hate the idea, he knew he would. So he ran his fingers through the red hair, pressed a kiss to the crown of his head.

“That’d ridiculous. You could never. It was just a nightmare-“

“I have,” David corrected, hiding his face against the man’s chest, seeming to want to shield himself from the world and finding Daniel worthy enough to make sure he didn’t get hurt more. “I didn’t go back and look for him. I couldn’t reach him in time, if only- if only I hadn’t been so upset earlier, if I hadn’t made it seem to damn important to find the stupid tree he would have looked where he was going, he wouldn’t have-“

Daniel learned plenty of things about David after that. He learned the kind of guilt David carried as his own, from his dead childhood friend to the fact he couldn’t do anything about having to send a certain camper home with a family David knew didn’t care. He learned that David didn’t want these feelings gone, to send them away because they were part of life, and David wanted to fix them himself. Daniel knew that was impure (stupid, wrong, just let me fix you, let me make you stop hurting), but David insisted. 

And, well, Daniel found some merit in his words after a while. He had to look at things differently, because David was slowly deconstructing everything he believed in and changing in, sometimes in ways so big Daniel didn’t think he could adapt and sometimes so subtly that he didn’t notice the change til long after it’d happened.  
_____________________________________________________

Daniel didn’t have any sort of a record. He didn’t know what lengths the cult had gone through to make sure that he didn’t have anything documenting his existence, much less his birth, but it’d been a thorough cleanse of all documents tying him to whoever his parents had been. 

So, with no background to speak of, both he and David decided it was best if he wasn’t at all involved with the process of David adopting Max. 

David had made it perfectly clear that he would do anything to make sure that Max had a good home, and if that meant leaving him because the child couldn’t and wouldn’t forgive him for what he’d pulled, then so be it. Daniel understood, waited with baited breath, but every day David texted him. He talked to him and smiled and they meet up for less frequent dates with all the paperwork and house evaluations and getting Max settled, but David still made time for him.

He was slowly reintroduced to Max. Daniel learned plenty of things about the other, like the fact he liked band, got pretty good grades in school, and didn’t trust Daniel further than he could throw him. But he didn’t ask David to stop seeing him, despite how many times David had offered. Daniel even learned eventually that Max had been the one to ask David to introduce them again, because David sure as hell wasn’t going to put Max in that situation.

It was a year before Max stopped jumping around him. There was a lot of talking, and figuring things out between them. Max couldn’t ever really just forgive Daniel, but he could accept the part he played now. 

“Don’t fuck this up,” had been the closest he’d gotten to a truce between them. 

It was a year after Max’s official adoption date (which was celebrated in the house nearly as festively as a birthday) that he suggested Daniel just moved in. It was a lot of debating, more talking and ended in a vague “sure, why not?”

He and David had been together for quite some time. They had a happy life, and the tension of when Max was being adopted had slowly eased out of their lives. A few things were just fact to Daniel now, like the fact David and Max were part of his life. Or the fact that he wasn’t going to be pure again, that he’d let this man taint him and he was completely fine with that. Or the fact that he fit oddly well into the little family they had. 

It was honestly disgustingly domestic. He taught violin lessons. David drove him and Max back from the school everyday. Their family was together at dinners, sharing stories and talking about what was going on in their personal lives. They put Max to bed and didn’t complain if he’d come out of his room at odd times during the night to check that they were still there, or ask to sit around with them after a bad dream. 

He was David’s - …he was their son. It wasn’t any problem to stay with him until he fell asleep again, or carry him to his room after they’d all put on some cheesy movie to help them forget. Being a dad happened slowly, but also all at once. He’d been there for Max as much as the other had wanted at first, and then all the time when the other had finally let him in. He’d drive him to school when David was sick and make his lunch in the morning and went to parent-teacher conferences. 

He hadn’t realized it until a slow Saturday morning, though. He’d made breakfast (because as multitalented as his lover was, cooking wasn’t his forte), and Max had come downstairs before David for once. He helped set the table, and when David had come down, he stopped in the doorway to smile at the two of them.

“Dad, where’s the syrup?”

David frowned, thinking on it as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

“I don’t know, maybe-“

“No, other dad,” Max said, interrupting David as he looked towards Daniel.

It took him a second to actually get words out, something Max teased him about as they ate. But that was seemingly the end of it. Daniel was one of his dads now, or at least enough to be called one. There was no argument from him, rest assured.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell about Camp Camp with me over at notinthere.tumblr.com I occasionally post my art there. I also take requests for both writing and pics so throw whatever you got at me!


End file.
